Nomvula Mokonyane: We are not here to canvas for the DA’s Cilliers Brink:
ANC deputy secretary general Nomvula Mokonyane has slammed Democratic Alliance (DA) federal chair Helen Zille over her threat to “risk the stability of the government of national unity” to have Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink reinstated.
Last week, Zille wrote to ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula and negotiator David Makhura demanding that Brink be returned to his position, warning that failure to do so could undermine talks on stabilising hung metros.
Zille accused Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi of pressuring the ANC national leadership to keep the DA out of power.
On Monday, Mokonyane told journalists at the ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters that the parties involved in the government of national unity (GNU) had agreed that there should be interaction and discussion at a political level.
Molonyane said throwing threats at “each other was not in the spirit of trying to build unity”.
“The most important is that nobody must assume that we serve at the GNU at their behest. There are so many other parties that are signatories to the GNU and there has to be respect for one another as well as appreciation for what we all stand for,” she said.
Zille’s assertions were “her own views” and were also “not consistent”, she added.
“Go and see what they [the DA] did in the Northern Cape. They worked against the ANC and worked with the Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF] to nominate a premier for the Northern Cape.
“In the Western Cape, they have gone to other municipalities and worked with many other formations, including the Good party to undermine the potential of the ANC running those municipalities.
“So there has to be consistency because we are not crybabies. When a decision is taken against us or people opt to collaborate, we don’t have an issue.”
Mokonyane said the ANC would support any process that takes Tshwane forward and creates stability but added: “We are not here to canvas for Cilliers Brink.”
The spat between the leadership of the two parties comes after the ANC and ActionSA removed Brink from his position last week through a motion of no confidence. It passed with the support of 120 councillors from the ANC, ActionSA and the EFF while 87 councillors from the DA, Freedom Front Plus, and the African Christian Democratic Party voted against it.
Part of the conditions for ActionSA supporting the motion was that it would get the mayor position and it pushed for its candidate, Nasipa Moya, to take over after acting in the post for the past seven days.
The same agreement between the ANC and ActionSA previously played out in the City of Johannesburg, which saw Al-Jamah mayor Kabelo Gwamanda replaced as mayor.
ActionSA’s national chairperson, Michael Beaumont, told the Mail & Guardian that it would benefit the ANC to keep its agreement with his party to continue having a working relationship that would keep the DA out of power in metros.
Beaumont said this amid speculation that the ANC wants to field former Tshwane ANC chair Kgosi Maepa as its mayoral candidate. Moya is poised to compete against Maepa and Brink in Thursday’s mayoral election session.
Beaumont said the ANC should not heed the pressure from Zille because it would face the same opposition it faced during negotiations for the Gauteng provincial government of unity where the DA “bullied” the ANC for positions.
The ANC eventually excluded the DA by forming a provincial government of unity with smaller parties including the Inkatha Freedom Party, Rise Mzansi and the Patriotic Alliance.
Beaumont said ActionSA was willing to go to the opposition benches in Tshwane if negotiations with the ANC did not succeed, and that this would filter to the other metros.
“We are very concerned about the potential of the ANC fielding its own candidate, which is why negotiations between the parties are important. We will update after the negotiations are done,” Beaumont said.
The DA’s Solly Msimanga also said the party would accept sitting in the opposition benches in the likely event that Brink was not elected as mayor.
“It is clear that the anti-GNU faction of the ANC is gaining the upper hand in the party,” he said.
“To the extent that there is a pro-GNU faction, they simply do not have the will and the wherewithal to stand up to those hollowing out the party from within. Whatever the ANC’s internal arrangement, it will be judged by its behaviour.”
De Lille appoints new members to South African Tourism board after mass resignations:
Tourism minister Patricia de Lille appointed seven new members to the South African Tourism board over the weekend, after six board members resigned in September.
The appointments come two weeks after the chairperson and deputy chair of South African Tourism (SAT) resigned after the minister removed them from their positions, retaining them as board members only. Four other members, including the chief financial officer, Talib Sadik, subsequently resigned.
De Lille publicly announced the shake-up to the board on 10 September because she had become concerned with the number of meetings the board was holding.
She told the Mail & Guardian: “In six months, they spent R900 000 of the R1.4 million allocated for board fees for the full financial year. This matter is about taxpayers’ money … the [parliament] tourism portfolio committee also raised concerns about the excessive amount of board meetings.”
De Lille appointed the new board in February 2024 after dissolving the previous board in April 2023 following their proposals to spend R910 million sponsoring UK football club Tottenham Hotspur.
The SAT is the government agency responsible for marketing South Africa as a tourism destination. Tourism has made a significant contribution to the economy but is still recovering after Covid-19.
In 2022, the sector’s direct contribution to gross domestic product was larger than three industries: construction, agriculture and utilities, but still below the pre-pandemic contribution of 3.7%, according to Statistics South Africa.
David Frost, the chief executive officer of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association – who also served on the SAT under the leadership of Derek Hannekom in 2018 – told the Mail & Guardian the SAT had a long history of not fulfilling its duties properly and not getting to the “optimum level we as the private sector would like to see it”.
“[De Lille] came in in the aftermath of the Spurs debacle which was inherently, in my view, a dodgy deal, and the people involved were compromised and suspect, so there was a need to stabilise the organisation and to get rid of those elements.”
He welcomed the new SAT appointments, adding that they brought a diversity of expertise and experience to the board, which is essential for the development and implementation of effective tourism strategies.
They include Rachel Nxele, who also serves as the vice chairperson on the association board; Jonathan Gadiah, the chief executive officer of Thompsons Africa and Judi Nwokedi, the group chief sustainability officer at Tourvest Integrated Tourism Group, as well as the former chief executive officer of Transnet Rail, Lawsen Naidoo, Miller Motola and Tumelo Selikane, all who come with experience in commercial marketing.
“We are confident that their collective knowledge and leadership will be instrumental in guiding South African tourism towards a successful future.”
The debacle with the former board chair Makhosazana Khanyile and deputy chair Lizelle Dominique Jordaan is, however, not complete, as the pair announced on 17 September that they would take legal action against De Lille for public defamation, adding that they were unhappy with the minister’s conduct towards them.
Khanyile confirmed this, telling the M&G that they have “attorneys representing us and that we are working with the attorneys — the relevant documents will be issued soon.”
In their formal statement, they said: “First and foremost, we must address the accusations brought against us regarding the convening of ‘excessive’ board meetings, which purportedly resulted in fruitless, wasteful and irregular expenditure.
“As we have previously indicated we strongly deny these accusations and we find it particularly regrettable that you thought it appropriate to go on national television to make these accusations against us. In addition, you stated on various media platforms that we were given an opportunity to respond to the allegations and that we chose not to. That is simply not factually correct.”
De Lille told the M&G that she stands by her decision to remove them and they had the right to decide how to deal with the matter.
She added that had Sadik resigned because of the “failure of the former chair and deputy chair to understand their fiduciary duties and the interference in the finances of the organisation” and that she had launched an independent investigation into the matter.
“In terms of the resignation of the other three board members, they have not advanced any reasons for their resignations,” she added.
Sugar industry wants delay on increasing tax crippling the sector:
South Africa’s struggling sugar sector is pleading with the government to hold off increasing a health promotion tax on the industry until 2030, when a master plan vital to its recovery and long-term sustainability will be finalised.
The industry has long argued that the sugar tax introduced in 2018 has hurt companies and cost jobs and, in his February 2023 budget, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana agreed to pause on increasing it, acknowledging the problems the sector was facing, including the effect of floods.
The moratorium — in which Godongwana kept the health promotion levy at 2.21 cents a gram of the sugar content exceeding 4g per 100ml — is set to expire at the next budget review in 2025, but the South African Sugar Association (Sasa) has urged the treasury to extend it by five more years.
The government introduced the tax on sweetened beverages in 2018, in response to the growing public health problem caused by lifestyle diseases.
According to Sasa, the tax cost the industry more than R2 billion and resulted in the loss of 16 000 jobs in its first year of implementation.
The sugar tax has led to the closure of the Darnall and Umzimkulu sugar mills in KwaZulu-Natal, Sasa says. Darnall, owned by Tongaat Hulett, was mothballed in 2020 and Umzimkulu, owned by Illovo Sugar, suffered a similar fate the same year.
If the moratorium on increasing the tax is not extended, “it’s unlikely that farmers will remain in sugarcane because it won’t be worth it because they’ll be making losses”, Sasa executive director Trix Trikam told a media briefing last week.
“There isn’t an alternative crop for farmers to go into. There is nothing else you can do on that land unless someone buys it and develops it for golf courses and resorts. It’s a major disaster looming,” Trikam said.
The association estimates a loss of R720 million a year if the freeze on increasing the tax falls away.
“Any changes to the health promotion levy must consider the outcomes of the socio-economic impact assessment study being undertaken by the presidency and the results of the dietary intake study,” said Sasa’s nutrition manager, Priya Seetal.
In addition to the tax, the sugar industry, which contributes 6% of total agricultural output, has also been hurt by what it says are insufficient tariffs on sugar imports.
In 2018, the International Trade Administration Commission said sugar import duties should be increased from $ 566 a tonne to $ 680 a tonne to protect the local industry in the face of a flood of sugar imports mainly from Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and neighbouring eSwatini.
The industry is also looking to diversify from only producing sugar and molasses to pursuing alternate revenue streams, said Sasa’s sustainability manager, Sam Maphumulo. He added that a cost-benefit analysis has been done on the conversion of sugar into bioethanol and biogases.
The analysis found that the sugarcane industry can produce ethanol that contributes 8% of the country’s fuel consumption, but this would require significant investment to develop.
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